Govt slashes sick leave period to tide over staff crunch
Sandeep.Moudgal@timesgroup.com
21.01.2022
Bengaluru: With a huge spike in Covid-19 cases, the Karnataka government has decided to “rationalise” sick leaves of government officials by reducing recovery days to anywhere between three and seven days.
As the Omicron strain of Covid-19 spreads quickly, the government is facing a serious manpower crisis with officials forced to take sick leave after testing positive.
It is being said that at least one in three government officials is testing positive, and, in several cases, the situation is being “misused” to work from home or skip assignments. Making excuses “We have been seeing a lot of our officials using Covid-19 as an excuse, even if they are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms, to extend sick leave. As a result, departments have been initiating action to bring them back to work immediately after seven days of quarantine,” said one government official.
In the education department alone, as many as four deputy directors of public instruction (DDPI) have tested positive on a single test, along with scores of their subordinates testing positive as primary contacts. “With this being the case, we are facing a shortage of manpower and have instructed those who have tested positive to return to work on the 8th day of recovery. We can no more afford long recovery periods,” said DPI commissioner R Vishal. Health workers testing +ve The bigger concern, however, is healthcare workers — government doctors, nurses and paramedical personnel — who are getting infected on a regu-lar basis, leaving the healthcare system overstretched.
According to health secretary TK Anil Kumar, the government has issued a circular stating that all healthcare workers who are primary contacts of a Covid-positive patient can return to work after three days if no symptoms are present.
“Our healthcare workers turn primary contacts every other day. We cannot afford to have them out of action for long. As a result, we have issued a circular saying they can return to work after three days,” said Kumar.
A similar order has been issued in the revenue department, which has one of the highest number of government employees after education and health. Department principal secretary Tushar Giri Nath said that as per the Government of India protocol, a seven-day mandatory period has been issued. “So, we are trying to maintain the same protocol even now,” said Nath.
Health secretary Kumar said the world over, recovery period has been reduced to anywhere between five to seven days andthe same norm is being followed in India.
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